Bury Me in Memory
by bethandbee
Summary: As Sam tries to learn more about his birth parents, he unravels an intricate web of shocking truths about his dark history and his identity. Some will do anything to ensure these secrets stay secret. Prominently features Sam, Quinn, Blaine, and Kurt.
1. Chapter 1: Still I Rise

Chapter One: Still I Rise

_You may write me down in history  
With your bitter, twisted lies,  
You may trod me in the very dirt  
But still, like dust, I'll rise._

_-Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise" _

The story was spelled out on the yellowed page, headlined by eight stark black letters:

SAM EVANS.

Sex: male; race: white; height: 3'2"; weight: 30 lbs.; hair colour: blond; eye colour: hazel.

He was a little taller at seventeen years, and a little heavier, but Sam was just as incomplete in living colour as he was on the ancient page.

Sam glanced at the clock. It was dangerously close to his group home's ten o'clock lights-out, and he had barely begun. He grimaced, cracked his knuckles, and turned to another page in his file.

Sam knew this story all too well – abandoned on the steps of an orphanage at three years old, branded undesirable and high-risk. Piles of forms spelled out his circumstances in tragic black and white. Mother: deceased; father, unknown. When he was four years old, one of his social workers had given him the whole sordid tale as thought it were a Disney movie.

"Once upon a time," she'd cooed, "there was a man and there was a woman, and they made a baby. And they loved the baby very much, and they knew it was important to take care of the baby, but they couldn't take care of him at that time in their lives."

The social worker had left out the part where the king ran away and the queen died of heartbreak and heroin. That was the X-rated version, the stuff left on Disney's cutting-room floor. But Sam knew the rest of the story. He had lived the tragic tale of their little prince, left to fend for himself in dirty diapers and crowded children's homes.

He didn't know what he was after, exactly, by digging out his file and highlighting anything that jumped out at him. His was a whitewashed story, a history full of holes. Perhaps he was just trying to fill it in, trying to find something that he could point to, something that screamed _this is who Sam Evans is._

Sam took one final look at the clock – five minutes to lights-out. This was it – this was his year. Tomorrow morning, he would pull on his old faded blue jeans and march into the foreign halls of William McKinley High School. He would listen to everybody whispering "Who's that kid?" and "Do you know who he is?"

And maybe, just maybe, he would finally be able to answer those questions himself. This year, he was going to write his own story.

* * *

One quiet afternoon, as she was dusting the broken dresser in the little-used guestroom, Quinn discovered the photograph that changed everything.

The tiny square folded and tucked into the space between the dresser and the wall beckoned to her. She reached for it, her fingers running over a thin layer of dust as she pried the paper loose and held it, just held it, for a moment.

She unfolded the photograph, blowing the thin, dusty sheen off of its well-worn face. Four deep lines, the result of years pressed against the wall, scored the picture into sections. Quinn recognized herself in the picture, around two years old, unmistakably blonde, clad in a turquoise bathing suit and giggling cheerfully as she dumped a bucket of sand onto...

She squinted, unable to see clearly in the dim light that filtered in through the guestroom's murky windows. Charlotte, maybe? Quinn furrowed her forehead, deep in though. No, Charlotte was much older than Quinn; besides, the other child looked like a boy. A billowing cloud of sand obscured the other child's face, so it was difficult to tell for certain, but Quinn could have sworn she saw a strip of white-blond hair, like duckfluff, poking out from behind Quinn's pink plastic bucket. His hands flailed in the air; Quinn smiled slightly as she noticed one of his hands curled up into a fist, likely grasping a handful of sand to fling at her.

Quinn perched herself on the bed, letting her fingers run over the deep folds of the photograph. Her eyes flitted around the photograph, as she searched for details, any clue as to who this boy was. Red swimming shorts, sunburnt-pink arms and legs. She had seen him before. She recognized him. She felt like she _knew_ him.

"Who are you?" she whispered into the quiet. "_Who are you_?"


	2. Chapter 2: Babylon

Chapter 2: Babylon

_The child alone a poet is:_

_Spring and Fairyland are his._

_Truth and Reason show but dim,_

_And all's poetry with him._

_-Robert Graves, "Babylon"_

"Very good, Quinn, I like the steeple on your church."

Quinn grinned, flicking her ponytail back over her shoulder. She held her paper up to her Sunday School teacher, pointing to the figures marching through the door.

"That's me going into the church with _God_."

"I like it, Quinn. Five more minutes and then we'll have a snack."

The rest of the children cheered, and the teacher leaned across the table to where Quincy was diligently working on his own assignment – a crayon illustration of God's love.

"What are you drawing, Quincy?"

Quincy bashfully rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. "It isn't really good."

"Oh, I'm sure it's wonderful, Quincy. Let's see."

Quincy flipped his paper upwards, smiling expectantly at the teacher. She turned her head to the side, looking a little confused. Quincy had drawn a puppy stumbling over its paws to catch a frisbee.

"Now how does that show God's love, Quincy?"

Quincy frowned. "I throw God a frisbee," he mumbled.

The teacher giggled slightly, opening her mouth to speak, but Quinn beat her to it.

"Quincy, you're supposed to draw _God_, not _dog_. God is a man in the sky. Dogs are furry and they eat bones."

"Eat bones?" Quincy whispered, and stiffened. He looked down at his drawing, horrified.

"No, no, Quincy, no..." the teacher rushed, running to Quincy's side. Tears were welling in his green eyes.

"Dog eat bones?"

"They chew on bones, Quincy, yes."

Quincy's lower lip trembled slightly. He paused, then began again, seriously and quietly.

"God eat bones?"

* * *

"How could you ask your teacher something like that, Quincy? What were you thinking?" Russell railed, pounding on the steering wheel.

The impact of his angry fists reverberated throughout their minivan, and his shouts seemed to echo off the walls. Judy fingered her collar nervously, shooting a quick glance into the backseat. There was Quincy, her precious boy, pushing himself as far back into his seat as he could, as if in doing so he could make himself disappear. She wanted nothing more than to pull the car over, to get out and hug Quincy so tight that he would forget all the yelling and the screaming.

She found she could not move.

"God and dog, Quincy?" Russell continued. "How the hell could you mix that up? How? How?"

"I don't know, Daddy, I..."

"How old are you?"

Quincy's mouth fell open, and he started stammering. "T... t... tree?"

"Not _tree_, dammit, _three_. And it's about damn time you started acting like it!"

Judy ran a hand through her hand, ready to quietly interject. "Russell, I really think that..."

"Quinn, how old are you?" he barked.

"Three years old, Daddy," she responded quietly, her hands folded neatly in her lap.

"Can you count?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"Can you read?"

"Yes, Daddy."

"The letters all mix up sometimes!" cried Quincy. Charlotte, in the seat next to him, quietly reached out and took hold of his hand. "I can't tell what the letters is!"

"What the letters _are_, stupid!"

"The letter R?"

Russell let out an infuriated scream and smacked the dashboard.

"Russell!" Judy interrupted sharply. He roared furiously in response. She shrank back into her seat, glancing back at her children once more while trembling uncontrollably.

Charlotte was stroking Quincy's hand, murmuring encouragement into his ear. Quinn had grabbed hold of her twin's other hand. Quincy, all the while, closed his eyes and squeezed his sisters' hands, as if willing himself to be smarter, more clever, better at numbers and letters.

* * *

"Okay, Quincy, now you gotta get in the batting stance here," Russell said, bending carefully over his boy. In front of them was an awe-inspiring baseball diamond filled with fifteen other preschoolers and their fathers. One child stood on the pitcher's mound, silently picking his nose.

"What I do?" mumbled Quincy.

"What _do _you do, you mean. You wanna spread your feet just a little wider than your shoulders, you wanna stand at this angle to the pitcher. Make sure you put a little more weight on the back foot, and don't let your heels touch the ground, now."

Quincy was twitching at bat, moving rapidly to follow his dad's directions. His feet practically danced across home plate.

"Keep your head steady, knees flexed. You wanna tuck your chin into your front shoulder."

"Daddy, I can't do it," whined Quincy.

"Just shut up and listen," growled Russell. He forcefully pushed Quincy's head into his shoulder.

"_Ow_, Daddy!"

"Just bend your elbows and make sure your back elbow is about eight inches behind your body. All right, now. Swing!"

Quincy gritted his teeth and swung hard at the ball perched atop the rubber tube right in front of him. His bat sailed out into the midfield. The baseball didn't budge.

"Were you even listening to a word I said?" Russell hissed, shoving Quincy forward. "What's wrong with you?"

"There's so much to _member." _

"_Re_-member," Russell corrected Quincy, and then mumbled under his breath. "Grow a brain."

As they walked back to the car at the end of practice, Quincy dragged his bat through the dirt.

"Daddy?" Quincy asked, squinting up into the sun.

"What is it, son?"

"Daddy, I don't wanna play t-ball no more."

"_Any _more." Russell took a swig from his beer and pushed Quincy forward a few paces. "And no, you don't get to quit. Sports build character."

"But Daddy, I wanna play Barbie," Quincy insisted. "With Quinn and Jesse."

Russell froze where he stood. "You're telling me you'd rather be at home playing Barbies with your sister and that scrawny little kid from next door?"

"What's a scrawny?"

"It's everything that you're not going to be, son," Russell said, crouching down to meet his son at eye level. "You're going to grow up to be tough and strong, and you can't do that if you play Barbies with your sister."

"But Quinn's dollies is fun!" Quincy stuck out his bottom lip, insistent.

Russell grabbed the collar of Quincy's jersey, pulling him forward. "Now, you listen to me. You're going to play baseball and you're going to like it, you understand? No son of mine plays Barbies."

He stood up, pushing Quincy backwards. "Daddy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to."

"Just get in the damn car," Russell growled, fumbling with the keys to get the door open.

* * *

The twins stuffed all of Quincy's black shirts into the crack under the door so their parents wouldn't notice that they still had the lights on. Quinn and Quincy had rigged a fort between Quinn's bed and her dresser. A soft yellow light glowed from underneath their makeshift tents, illuminating their silhouettes. In near silence they worked on Quinn's numerous Barbies, making the dolls put on swimsuits and prom dresses and kilts.

"Oh no, I'm late to meet the prince," whispered Quincy, forcing his astronaut Barbie into the Dream Car. "This Jeep take you to Mars, Barbie, no worry."

Quinn sighed, laying down her Swan Lake Barbie, which was clad in a pristine white tutu. "Cars can't travel through space, Quincy. You need a rocketship."

"But Barbie needs to get to her space wedding on Mars on time," Quincy mumbled. He tried to fit a fluffy white wedding dress over Barbie's space helmet.

"Mars is the planet of war," Quinn nodded, in that all-knowing way of hers. "They should get married on Venus. Venus is the planet of love."

"Venus made of gas," Quincy realized, suddenly worried. "They can't walk down the island. There's no place to put their feet!"

"The island?" Quinn giggled. "You mean the aisle. That's the row that goes right down the middle of the church."

Quincy sighed, and laid his Barbie down. "I wish I could stop talking all wrong."

"It's not that hard, Quincy. I know you'll get it one day."

"Letters get mixed up in my head," Quincy sighed, poking at Barbie's horse. "Like with God and dog. I don't know where the right letters go. I'm so dumb."

Quinn sighed, reaching out for Quincy's hand. "I don't think you're dumb."

Quincy wriggled free of Quinn's grasp. "But I am. Just like Daddy says."

"No, you're just different. Don't listen to what Daddy says."

Quinn picked up a Barbie and started chattering excitedly, holding up pink dresses to try on. Quincy was lost in thought, filtering aimlessly through Barbie's outfits until he found a tiny baseball jersey.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: Is anyone close to solving the mystery? We'll be revealing the truth pretty soon, but it might take a little longer for Sam to solve the puzzle. Leave a review!**

* * *

Chapter Three: Finish Each Day

_Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a __new__ day, you shall begin it well and serenely._

_-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Finish Each Day"_

Quinn Fabray, age 17, was the image of perfection – blonde curls done up in an immaculate ponytail, pristine and freshly pressed cheerleading uniform and, of course, pom-poms at the ready. In just moments, the whistle would sound shrilly through the air and she would march out, flanked by her Cheerios, to pull off another flawless routine. Quinn's muscles tensed when she heard the whistle blow. This was it. She squared her shoulders, drew in a deep breath, and marched out onto the field – one, two, one, two, left, right, left. Here was the green grass, the floodlights, the stadiums packed with spectators, all holding their breath. Quinn froze on the spot, pom-poms raised high, waiting for the music.

"Hey! Little Miss Cheerio!" someone called.

Quinn didn't move, didn't even tremble. This was her first halftime show since last year, since Finn Hudson and Noah Puckerman and Shelby Corcoran and – she pushed it all out of her mind. She would ignore them. Every jeer.

"Yeah, yeah, that's right. I'm talking to you!" the same voice screamed. Out of the corner of her eye, Quinn saw Santana emerge from the tunnel and stomp to centre field. Quinn seethed, gritting her teeth and squaring herself against her competition.

"So," Santana drawled, circling Quinn like a vulture, "You're head cheerleader, hey? You think you're all that?"

"Did you really think that was going to work on me?" Quinn answered loudly, turning to face Santana. They faced each other, moving in a constant circle. Quinn was getting a little dizzy. "You were just going to call me out, right here, right now? Right in front of everybody?"

Her blonde ponytail swayed back and forth as she leaned forward, threatening Santana with her red and white pom-poms. "You're looking for a reaction, aren't you?" Quinn cooed.

An unmistakable drumbeat began pounding across the field. Quinn grinned, lazily dropping the threatening pom-pom to her side.

"Well, Santana," Quinn smiled, "I ain't no hollaback girl."

The crowd went wild and, as Gwen Stefani started chanting about bananas, Quinn slid into position next to Santana, stomping ferociously and waving her hands in the air. Sue Sylvester's mighty squad of Cheerios attacked the field in full force, executing backflips and lifts with perfect accuracy. And in the centre of it all was Quinn, pouring herself into the routine like nothing had ever changed.

No boys this year, she thought to herself, kicking forward as she began to spin. No drama. No babies.

The speakers went silent, and the squad froze in position. Quinn was poised atop a pyramid, one leg in the air, high above her head. Applause tore through the stadium, and Quinn closed her eyes as the rest of the squad lowered her down.

As the Cheerios marched in single file off the field, Quinn's heart raced. She still had it. She had brought an entire football stadium to its knees. This was her year. Her very own.

* * *

Sam lingered in the locker room long after everybody else had left, letting the hot water numb his aching body. Little rivers streamed down his body as he turned and twisted lazily. He'd gotten tackled pretty hard in the third quarter, and he was still a little sore.

He tilted his face up to the water, sighing as droplets splashed against his forehead and went slowly climbing down to his chin. He was trying to erase the longings, the yearnings that stemmed from non-existent memories.

He'd been walking off the field at the end of the game and pulling off his helmet when a blur of motion caught his eye. He had turned to see one of his teammates – Sam vaguely recognized him as the quarterback, Finn Hudson - getting clapped on the back by some guy Sam guessed was his dad.

"Good job, son!" the guy had bellowed, pulling Finn into a hug. "Your mother and I are so proud of you!"

Sam gasped for breath, turning away from the stinging jets of the shower. Those words kept running through his head, haunting him – _your mother and I, your mother and I, son, so proud, son._

He wondered about her sometimes, his mother. And even though he had no recollection of her, he missed her. On paper, she was Stacy Evans, dead of a heroin overdose at only nineteen years. In his mind, he had only one vision of her – he imagined her, dreamed about her, even; she was stooped over on the steps of Saint Cecilia House, crying as she wrapped him up in a blanket and kissed his tiny forehead over and over again. He always woke up just as she was ringing the doorbell and running away through the labyrinthine back alleys of the worst parts of Detroit. Sam sighed and leaned against the cold side of the stall, fumbling around for his shampoo.

"_I listen to our favourite song, playin' on the radio_," he sang, squirting some gel into his hands and letting it ooze through his fingertips. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

"_Hear the DJ say love's a game of easy come and easy go_," Sam crooned, running his hands through his shaggy hair. "_But I wonder, does he know_? _Has he ever felt like this_?"

He spun around under the streaming water, letting lather splash against the cold metal walls of his stall.

"_And I know that you'd be here right now_-" He paused to grab a bar of soap and hold it to his face like a microphone. "_If I could have let you know somehow_..."

He leaned onto his heels, imagining his soap was a microphone and the shower was his spotlight. "_I guess every rose has its thorn, yeah, it does. Just like every night has its dawn_..."

He chuckled at himself and turned to rinse out his hair. He was just another cowboy singing a sad, sad song. He knew overdoses, the wrong ends of razors, and the cold sting of angry fists on his face. He knew orphanages and funerals and loneliness and loss and hurt, hurt, hurt. He had been alive and breathing for seventeen years, and he had seen more than most people would see in their whole lives, but he hadn't seen love. Not yet.

He twisted the taps, letting the water flow slowly to a drip. Swinging a towel around his hips, he walked back to the lockers, nearly slipping on some wet tile, and all the while singing.

"_Every rose has its thorn_..."


End file.
